Hungary qualified for their third consecutive European Championship in a row last month, a historic first, after finishing on top of their qualifying group. With their performance, Captain Szoboszlai and the team managed to not only avoid having to play play-offs for the Euro 2024 spot, but also got cast into Pot 2 for the group stage draw.
In these draws, teams are grouped into pots based on qualification performance to avoid drawing disproportionately strong quartets compared to each other. The six best teams are placed in Pot 1, then the next six best teams are in Pot 2, and so on.
The draw was held on Saturday, 2 December, in Hamburg, Germany. Germany will be the host nation for next year’s European Championship.
Hungary got picked as soon as possible, drawn by 2010 World Cup finalist midfielder Wesley Sneijder of the Netherlands right away into Group A, next to the hosts Germany from Pot 1 (host countries are traditionally put into the first group automatically, so they get to play the opening game). For the rest of the night, all we had to wait and see was which other two nations would be randomly picked from the two remaining, weaker sets of teams.
Eventually, we got Scotland from Pot 3 and Switzerland from Pot 4, forming the final line-up of Group A at Euro 2024, along with Germany and Hungary.
Scotland finished second in their qualifying group, behind Spain (although they did beat Spain 2–0 at home at the beginning of the campaign), and ahead of Erling Haaland’s Norway.
Switzerland, meanwhile, is actually the second most common historical opponent for the Hungarian Men’s National Team. We have played against them 46 times in the past (last time in the qualifier group for the 2018 World Cup, and got beaten back-to-back). Only Austria have played more games against Hungary in the past. The Swiss came in second in their qualifying group, behind Romania—and actually played their road game against Israel in Felcsút, Hungary due to the Hamas-Israel war.
Our boys will start their Euro 2024 campaign on 15 June, against Switzerland in Cologne; then they will travel to Stuttgart where they will face Germany on 19 June, then Scotland on 23 June.
The top two finishers automatically qualify for the round of 16, while the four best-performing third-place finishers out of the six also advance.
Currently, Jamal Musiala, the 20-year-old attacking midfielder playing for Bayern Munich is the highest ranked player from the German side; along with his fellow Bayern teammate, winger Leroy Sané and defensive midfielder Ilkay Gündogan from Barcelona. Defensive midfielder Scott McTominay from Manchester United is the biggest star in the Scottish squad; while the biggest names in the Swiss squad are goalkeeper Yann Sommer from Internazionale, centre back Manuel Akanji from defending UCL champions Manchester City, and midfielder Granit Xhaka from Bayer Leverkusen.
Read the Full Euro 2024 Group Stage Draw Here
As for the rest of the group stage draw, Group B is generally regarder as 'the group of death,' the one with the strongest teams against each other. It features Euro 2012 champions Spain, 2022 World Cup bronze medalists Croatia, and defending European champions Italy, along with the 'odd ones out,' Albania.
The losing side of the 2022 World Cup, France, also got their work cut out for them: they will be facing the Netherlands, Austria, as well as the winners of Path A in the play-offs (yet to be determined, as play-offs will be held in March 2024). Portugal, still featuring the 38-year-old national legend Cristiano Ronaldo, was the only team in the qualifying stage to win every single game they played. They got drawn into Group F, along with Türkiye and the Czech Republic, as well as the Patch C winners of the play-offs.
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